In every culture, a name, shem, as far as I know, I'd like to verify this in Hebrew, is related with the word to flow. So a name is an identification of the flow of energy of a person. And so, what is the energy flow of this God that he meets? This is all important, because if you've got the name, you can touch into that flow and control it. And so, Moses said to God, when I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, if they ask me, what is his name, what am I to tell them? God replied, this is what you shall tell the Israelites, I am sent me to you. The name of God is I am.

[01:02]

Now there's two, another little sentence in here which I omitted, because it seems, according to Albright, originally the word I am given, that name wasn't in Hebrew. And so, they had to translate it when they put it into the Hebrew, and they put in both of them. And the Hebrew translation is simply, I am who am. And that I am who am was taken into the third person, and that's what Yahweh means, the one who is. Now, notice that there are all kinds of gods, I am the God of the hearth and the God of war, and there's the God of peace, the God of, I am the God of fertility, I am all kinds of gods. There's no ranking, no category to this God. The only category is the absolutely universal category of being.

[02:10]

So, God is not a being. God is being itself. Pure being. And therefore, I'd like to go back to... No, you're doing swell, taking up the time that you didn't use. Is this all right? Norman, you make the call here. This is why I want to get up. Get up. This is it, okay. I'd like to go back, then, to the Buddhist tradition. There's this extraordinary myth, it's just a legend, that says that when Buddha was born, this little baby stood up and put one finger in the air and said, in the whole universe, I alone exist. The first time I heard that, I couldn't understand. It made absolutely no sense. And yet, if a Buddhist can't say that, they're not fully followers yet.

[03:14]

If a Christian can't say, in the whole universe, I am, they're not a Christian yet, or a Hebrew Judaic Christian tradition. The I that is presented in Buddhism, I deeply feel, this is my own paradigm, is the I am of the I of the I am. And so, the practice that I give people today at our meditation center is, I ask you to go ahead and ask yourself, who is sitting? Who is hearing? Who is following the breath? Who is breathing? Who is saying the Jesus prayer? And so forth. And then, with your mind, answer, I am.

[04:20]

Then you say, who am I? And that's where your mind starts to break down. You have to answer, I am. So, we could go much more into that. I am happening. But, I'd like to only present the problem that comes up. That ends very briefly. What about the dualism that's presented in the psalms? In that, Norman takes the name of Yahweh, God, and puts in you all the time. Doesn't that feel dualistic? What about the problem of dualism? Now, I've, for my own self, I've pretty much, pretty much, solved the problem, intellectually and, to some degree, experientially.

[05:22]

But, in Christianity, dualism is pandemic. There are very few Christians who would ever say anything like Catherine of Genoa. Who says, God is my being. God is my me. So, that's a good question. What about the dualism in the psalms? Thank you. Thank you for the hand. Do you want to respond now, or do you want to hear other responses? Just a little bit. Thank you. It was a great Zen lecture. Best one I've heard in a long time. I really resonated with everything that you said.

[06:27]

Thank you. I just jotted down here what I wanted to share with the group. One of the traditions is to give a capping phrase, you know, a very short, pithy phrase, to a koan. So, I wrote down, on the hand, presented two koans, and I wanted to give my capping phrases to a koan. If you could present it. The first koan is, Does God exist? And my capping phrase is, Existence and non-existence imply each other. Birth and death is a mystery. And then, the next koan is, Is God personal? And my capping phrase is, I am personal. So, thank you. And Buber translates that part in Exodus. I've been reading that. Buber translates it in English from German as, I will be there.

[07:32]

That's how he translates it. I am that I am. In English, he translates, I will be there. On the spot, you know, in reality, in existence, in the spot, in being, I will be there. Yeah, I didn't go into the nuances, the various trans-interpretations of what I just wanted. Took the one I liked. Yeah, yeah. He didn't know the best policy yet. So, that's all. Can we see? Thank you. Yeah. Can we see how many responses we have? That we need to, it's one. So, Chan, and then David, and then Bruno, and then Joseph. Anybody else? You can think about it. And then, and I forgot your name. Francis. Francis, okay. Let's start with Chin. Isn't that your name? Chin. Chin. Okay. This is a position which I view, feel great, namely, what is God.

[08:36]

Probably your term, you said, I was impressed when you say God is a technical term. Technical. In other words, one has to interpret, one has to experience it, and then interpret. So, God, in that sense, is syn-categor-matic. I'm using a logical term. In other words, you have to put it in the right context. You cannot talk about God. So, therefore, we can paraphrase a passage from Tao Te Ching, when Tao Te Ching says, the Tao which can be said is not a real Tao. So, God which can be named or can be said is not a real God. So, maybe that's the foundation. Now, the second thing which I think is important, because I want to accentuate the relevance of Confucianism, you know, Confucius one time said in the Analects, if I participate in the sacrifice, performing a sacrifice to the ancestors, who I participate in the sacrifice,

[09:41]

I experience experience. If I'm not participating in the sacrifice, I live and act as if there are no spirits. In other words, the very context of life should define and give meaning to what we think there is. I think that's very important. I think in light of Father Han's further interpretation here, what I am, what God is, has to be given meaning in that particular context of meaning. So, that recalls me another incident which you may say is relevant here. When Buddha Dharma went to China, you know, so he was brought to the audition of Emperor Wu of the Liang, of course. So, Liang and Emperor Wu said, who I'm talking to?

[10:43]

Buddha Dharma's reply is, nobody. Nobody. And of course, he was dismissed. That is not the point. The point is that Emperor Wu failed to see the presence of something which gives meaning because of his practice of meditation. That's my comment. Thank you. When you said, quoting the Tao Te Ching, the Tao which can't be named is not the Tao, it recalls Father Han's distinction between the concept of God and the reality of God. And then he was saying that in our conversations to be careful not to fall into discussion of the concept but to always have a view in our hearts, you know, of the reality informing the conversation, which is of course very hard to do because as soon as you open your

[11:46]

mouth, or even if you don't open your mouth and you think anything, you're already thinking in concepts, you're already naming the Tao that can't be named. So, it's a difficult proposition. But yet, this is what we have to do. We have to keep ourselves attuned with that reality. And I think... So, for me, this is the nature of poetic language. It's language that is recognizing the limitations of language and always striving for saying the unsayable. And so, you know, I suppose it would be nice to think that in our dialogues we would always be straining for that kind of dialogue, the dialogue that is always skirting the edge of the unsayable and not falling into conceptual thinking so much that we exile ourselves, you know, from our true hearts in that sense. Thank you. Fr David? I wanted to thank you all for this point that language is always...

[12:50]

that poetry is always towards the Tao, so to say. And it makes me think that maybe long before we become Homo sapiens, we are Homo coeta. We are born as Homo coeta. Mixed with Paganas, Paganas is about us knowing God before we know anything else. Not in a reflexive way, but in this way of speaking. And in some way, everything that Buber said in I and Thou is summed up poetically by E. E. Cummings when he says in a love poem, that's the last line, I am through you, so I. I am through you, so I. I just want to make a distinction to help the dialogue, maybe to make a distinction as a question between two kinds of dualism. Norman refuses to objectify God by using that word God, and so he rejects that particular

[13:57]

kind of dualism. At the same time, he makes a terrific assertion of another kind of what you might call dualism, which is, call it interpersonal, the dualism of you, the second person. But the non-duality of the East, it seems to me, can also be an assertion of the person from the inside. That is the mystery of truth, because the person is uncircumscribable, essentially. The person is a mystery. Whether it's the person of me or the person of God, it's uncircumscribable. So to speak in terms of non-duality, to speak in terms of my mystery, as it were, or coming from that mystery which I refuse to cut, to analyze, or circumscribe, to speak in terms of you is to do the same thing. It's the other side of it. But I don't know how far that's permissible in Buddhism, to use the second person like that. But I certainly think that that kind of dualism in Buddhism has to be part of our way. We've got a quarter of an hour to close, haven't we? Yeah. You know, I...

[14:58]

This morning, Thaygen spoke about the... And I deeply agree that non-dualism must include dualism. Otherwise, non-dualism is dualistic, right? You're setting up a notion of dual... So I think that... But I think to contextualize dualistic... And of course, I recognize completely that using you, it makes it more intimate, but it's certainly dualistic. You is... And the fact that there could exist in our language, and there must exist in every single language that I'm aware of, the word you of some version, because that is the nature of language, is that it's that which addresses the other. So that... I think you can't... If you try to have a spirituality that doesn't recognize the need to address the other as an other, as a dualistic other, then I think there's a dimension of our spirituality that

[16:02]

is left out, and we will always be not whole. But to put that reaching out for the other, that dualistic reaching out for the other, in the context of oneness, that's the trick. And of course, we're always forgetting that. That's similar to the point I was just making about the concept of God, which we need to have in order to speak. But if we attach to that and believe in its reality as something other than a concept, then we become confused. It's a similar thing here. So it's always skirting the edge. You're always walking on a razor's edge and almost always falling off. But if you know you fell off, then it's okay. I think next we have Joseph, and then Francis, and then Cyprian, and then Leonard. Take it. Thank you. I like the poem of Tom, by Tom, and the phrase...

[17:04]

Catholic phrase. So the point is, does God exist? And your phrase is, existence and non-existence requires each other. I think that's more the center of the discussion about the reality of God. And I would like to make some comments, also relying on the German solution. Thank you. I think it's beautifully put. Does God exist? Existence and non-existence requires each other. Or God is beyond existence and non-existence. God is simply beyond existence and non-existence. In the sense that God is the horizon, the context which enables things to be there. He's the weight of horizon, the context, or the ground, the ground of being.

[18:07]

So he simply is on another level, a different level as the things we see. So in that sense we can say God does not exist. He is not one object among the other objects, or one entity among the various entities. In that sense, on that level, he doesn't exist. But on a deeper level, he's what makes all the things exist. So of course, he exists. In that sense, he's the ground, the ground of existence. Or Catherine of Siena would go, or Master Eckhart would go so far as to say God is the being of all existing things. He's the ground of being. To give an example, a more concrete example would be the analogy of light and the objects we see.

[19:10]

What we see are the different objects, the chair, the table, people, and so on. But in order to see this, there's the light. But in our consciousness, on the explicit level, the reflective level, normally we are not thinking about the light. Our attention is to the particular objects, but the light is always there. Whether it's a pre-conscious level or a non-reflective level, it is always there. I think there can be a kind of analogy. That's what Brenner thinks about. Our experience of God is inevitable. It's always there. In order to know anything, in order to come to contact with anything, there is already the primordial contact with that reality of God in a pre-conceptual or non-reflective way.

[20:11]

We are constantly in contact with this great reality. We're going to have to negotiate these other five minutes. Is that okay? We have three more to go and then we can have a little rest. Does it make sense? Yes, absolutely. Thank you. It's almost the same as given in the mind-only schools of Buddhism. Only instead of the word God, it would be consciousness. Even the same analogy, actually. With light and objects, yes. Francis? Abbot Norman, I want to thank you for the poetic position you take, also for the poetic language you give. And I think if I put myself in the shoes of the psalmist, your description of the poet speaking to a you is exactly the poetic position and the believing position of the psalmist. But it's a double abyss that the psalmist is speaking into.

[21:14]

One is the infinite you that's powerfully present and changing pain into praise and into also a pathway of compassionate action. But also there's this infinite, and that's the painfulness of the infinite absence, where it's the cry of the heart. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, the majority of your poems, when they hit most powerfully, the ones you've read, they're coming from the lamentations. So they're speaking into that absence. Now, I also feel if you go with the psalms not as a collection of hymns or poems, but as a pathway, as Romuald says in this little rule that we were given, then the key point that you're making about the turning is the abyss emerges again. And the abyss emerges at the point where pain turns to praise or thanksgiving.

[22:15]

And the exegetes, when they look at that, they say it doesn't happen in the words. It happens between the psalms, or it happens like in Psalm 51, where it's going down, down, down, down in depression, and then all of my life I will praise my God. So that turning point is another experience of the abyss. So I thank you for the poetic approach to the psalms. Thank you. Cyprian? A few words, and maybe in defense of the practice of reciting the psalms, maybe contextualize. Every monastery is allowed to devise their own selection of what psalms to use after the Second Vatican Council. So for instance, the line that you quoted, we would never say here, in the official prayers of the church, those lines are also dropped out. Some monasteries chose to keep every single line of every psalm.

[23:17]

So many places would never even read some of those lines. And some Catholics, I think, would be surprised to find out that they're in there. So in regular practice, you know, some of the real offensive, even the condemnatory lines, and lines such as the one about dashing babies' heads, would never be used in the context of liturgy. But also, just the slightest little nuance. I love your psalms, by the way. Especially the psalmistry. They're so moved by them. But there may be, when I contextualize again, you said it's surprising that the main practice of, specifically as monks, is to recite the psalms. I could nuance that a little bit and say, the main practice of monks is to listen to the psalms, to respond to the psalms. Especially in the monastic spirituality, it's the liturgy of the word that we, in a sense,

[24:19]

we even sing the psalms to each other as a proclamation. But some monastic scholars would argue that the real praying goes on when the psalm is done. It's our response to, that's God's word spoken, because we believe, we think of the psalms as being inspired by the Holy Spirit. So they're actually God's prayers being said, and then our real praying goes on afterwards in listening. And our response, in the monastic tradition, is usually silence. Is this long, and so we observe long pauses between the psalms. That may be the actual prayer. So it's not just our main practice is reciting the psalms, our main practice is responding to them in silence. It's taking a minute. And I was thinking as you were reading, what a marvelous thing it would be to listen to your versions of the psalms in the context of our office. I could sit there for a long time and listen to your versions of the psalms. So, I hope that...

[25:20]

Yeah, thank you, that does help. And certainly, last night and this morning in the choir, that is very noticeable. In other words, the pacing and the silences between psalms make a huge difference. I did feel that, in other words, what you're now explaining, I could feel in the office. Well, in Fr. John Mayne, you've mentioned it a few times, the title of his book somehow sums the whole thing up, Word Into Silence. Especially, I think, for my understanding of monastic spirituality, it always goes, Word Into Silence. And somehow, there's something objective about the psalms. We're talking about not being able to describe God. I'm not sure I need to compose a prayer anymore. So, I'm happy to have there be some objective prayers to follow. Because Jesus and his apostles, we don't even know how to pray. So, we have these poems that kind of dance around the image. And I think I'm feeling this, but you tell me. So, thank you. Well, that's what I did, and then the last word.

[26:21]

Yes, this question of those unportant things, come up with non-dualism, dualism and non-dualism. I feel my Buddhism is only formed by experience of Christian relationality. So, I'm going to throw another Buddhist expression for this, which comes from the Lotus Sutra, and Kumarajiva's translation of it, which is that the depths of this reality can only be fully penetrated by, only by a Buddha together with a Buddha. So, only a Buddha together with a Buddha can really get down. And this is practice in Buddhism of seeing all beings as Buddha. I wanted to throw that into the mix. Thank you. Well, thank you all very much for listening. And I appreciated your comments. I think that our dialogue is really getting interesting.

[27:22]

Thank you.

[27:24]

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